by John Gross
Per Business Insider, $37 billion is lost annually in the US due to unproductive meetings. What are the losses in productivity? Meetings that last longer than they need to; meetings with unneeded participants; meetings that fail to yield decisions and require additional meetings; people waiting on those decisions; and loss of employee engagement from poor facilitation.
Before we talk about how to conduct productive meetings, let’s clear up a misconception about meetings: Meetings aren’t intrinsically bad; there are just BAD meetings! ‘Good’ meetings are needed to run any business!
Productive meetings have two elements:
1. Effective format and structure: Start and end on time, same day, same time, and same agenda.
2. Focused on action vs. reporting. (Reporting meetings are the main reason for unproductive meetings.)
Meetings with an effective format and structure allow participants to schedule and prepare without impacting the rest of the day’s schedule. Meetings focused on action address issues — as opposed to reporting meetings where time is spent explaining, justifying and defending results. Addressing an issue means identifying a problem’s root cause and selecting the best solution to eliminate the cause forever, in contrast to endlessly discussing and discussing and discussing the same issue.
Are your meetings action-focused or reporting-focused? What are unproductive meetings costing you in $$$ and engagement?
P.S., A great example of a productive meeting can be found in the bestselling book “Traction” by Gino Wickman and is called a Level 10 meeting. You can learn more about weekly Level 10 meetings at eosworldwide.com.
John Gross is an EOS Implementer who helps businesses achieve Vision, Traction, and Healthy. You can contact John at John@ DrivingChangeInc.com or call 636.667.0579.